Anapsida
| Anapsids Temporal range: Carboniferous - Recent |
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| Anapsid skull | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Informal group: |
Anapsida Williston, 1917 |
| Orders | |
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An anapsid is an amniote whose skull does not have openings near the temples. Traditionally, the Anapsida are the most primitive subclass of reptiles, the ancestral stock from which Synapsida and Diapsida evolved, making anapsids paraphyletic. It is however doubtful that all anapsids lack temporal fenestra as a primitive trait, and that all the groups traditionally seen as anapsids truly lacked fenestra.
While "anapsid reptiles" or "anapsida" were traditionally spoken of as if they were a monophyletic group, it has been suggested that several groups of reptiles that had anapsid skulls may be only distantly related. Scientists still debate the exact relationship between the basal (original) reptiles that first appeared in the late Carboniferous, the various Permian reptiles that had anapsid skulls, and the Testudines (turtles, tortoises, and terrapins). However, it was later suggested that the anapsid-like turtle skull may be due to reversion rather than to anapsid descent. The majority of modern paleontologists believe that the Testudines are descended from diapsid reptiles that lost their temporal fenestrae. More recent morphological phylogenetic studies with this in mind placed turtles firmly within diapsids, some place turtles as a sister group to extant archosaurs or, more commonly, within Lepidosauromorpha.
All molecular studies have strongly upheld the placement of turtles within diapsids; some place turtles within Archosauria, or, more commonly, as a sister group to extant archosaurs. However, one of the most recent molecular studies, published on 23 February 2012, suggests that turtles are lepidosauromorph diapsids, most closely related to the lepidosaurs (lizards, snakes, and tuataras).
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